


cliche reunions

by luciimariiellii



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: : ), Brotp, Gen, Harley Keener is Tony Stark’s son, I proofread like once but not very well, Uncle Clint Barton, i do what I want I’m gay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-03
Updated: 2019-06-03
Packaged: 2020-04-07 07:59:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19080817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luciimariiellii/pseuds/luciimariiellii
Summary: Harley Keener just wanted a sandwich. Instead, he reunites with the uncle that’s been missing for years.





	cliche reunions

**Author's Note:**

  * For [badbucky](https://archiveofourown.org/users/badbucky/gifts).



> no one cares about this friendship but me and leya whatever 
> 
> JAJJSSJSJ happy birth leya you’re old

     Every year, @potatogun on Twitter sends out Christmas messages to his family. And birthday messages, and Thanksgiving messages, and, and, and.

   This would be nothing out of the ordinary, if not for the fact that all of these family members are dead. Or, in one particular case, missing.

    On June 18, 2021, Ronin - his usual get up forgone for the sake of blending in and replaced with a black hoodie and jeans - enters a library. He signs up for a library card with the librarian, heads to the computer area, and logs onto Twitter.

    Without logging in, he finds @potatogun, and his heart swells in his chest when he reads:  _ Happy bday to my favorite Uncle (don’t tell Bruce) Clint! Old man. Have a good one, Mr. Clonton Borton, wherever the hell you are right now.  _ (The words  _ Clonton Borton _ provoke an instinctual reaction in Clint to say  _ Shut up, Harvey. _ )

    There’s a response from @hulk, simply,  _ “I take offense to that.”  _ Then, the reply from @potatogun: “ _ Well, Morgan says you’re her favorite.” _

   Ronin swears up and down he doesn’t regret missing Morgan’s birth, or Harley’s graduation, or Tony and Pepper’s wedding. 

    He _ doesn’t regret it. _

  
  
  


_ All I wanted to do was get a fucking sandwich,  _ Harley thinks in the moment. 

   ( _ I am so glad I went to get that sandwich,  _ Harley thinks when he wakes up the next morning with red eyes and an ice cream receipt clutched to his chest.)

    On June 19, 2021, Harley thinks about Clint Barton as he walks down the street with a sandwich in hand. The day before was Clint’s birthday, and every time Harley remembers that fact something in his stomach twists.

    He hates the thought of Clint, out there by himself, without his family, massacring fucking gang members - for what? Retribution? ( _ “He’s just like me now,” Natasha had whispered when she thought no one was listening, “Now he’s got red on his ledger.” _ )

    Harley pushes his angsty as fuck thoughts down in favor of contemplating how hungry he is.

    He’s been staying with May the past couple days. Ever since Peter - ever since the Decimation, May’s been in an understandable slump, and it never hurts to visit and cheer her up. Of course, May’s at work today, so Harley went to buy lunch. He loves May, but it’s hard work forcing her cooking down his throat. 

    He shoots a grateful, loving look down to his sandwich. If he could, he would elope with this sandwich immediately, but that’s illegal and also kind of dark because he’s about to eat it.

    A piercing scream, then a helpless shout forces him out of his contemplation. His head swivels around until his eyes land on an alleyway. Cliche. Then there’s the yell again, a loud whine of, “ _ Help! _ ”

_ That’s a kid’s voice. _

    And, well, Harley  _ has _ been working on his own Iron Man suit. Got to start superheroing somewhere, he supposes.

   Sadly, he drops the sandwich on the ground and dashes into the alley. “Hey, assholes!” He yells, taking in the situation: two people, one a man and the other a woman. The man’s forearm is tight around a child’s throat. As the thugs turn to him, knives at the ready, Harley realizes he  _ really didn’t think this through. _

__ “Who the hell are you?” The man grunts. He keeps one arm around the whimpering boy’s neck. The woman stiffens suddenly, turning slowly from Harley to her partner with a grin spreading across her face. 

    “That’s one of Tony Stark’s brats,” She says. Dread pools in Harley’s stomach. 

    The man barks a laugh and tightens his hold on the boy. The boy chokes as he looks to Harley with pleading eyes. “Oh, I bet you’re loaded, kid!” The man says. “Trying to be a hero like your daddy, huh?”

    “Shut  _ up, _ ” the woman snarls, mirroring Harley’s thoughts exactly. He tenses as her knife gets dangerously close to the boy’s throat. “Drop all of your money, and the kid here doesn’t get hurt.”

    “...Okay,” Harley relents. It doesn’t  _ matter _ . It’s Tony’s money, and Tony the billionaire really won’t notice if twenty dollars go missing. “It’s really not much, though. Twenty bucks,” he says as he holds the bill out.

    The woman narrows her eyes. “No way there isn’t more.”

    “Ma’am, with all due respect,” Harley says, doing his best to keep up that classic, country style faux politeness that he knows infuriates people around here, “I don’t carry hundreds of dollars with me to buy a sandwich.”

    “Your watch,” she growls.

    “Don’t have one.”

    The woman stalks forward and rips the bill out of his hand. “Phone. Bet you got a StarkPhone, huh?” And then she is snatching his phone out of his front hoodie pocket.

    He squawks. That phone-

    That phone has proof of Peter Parker being Spider-Man. That phone has gossip from the princess of Wakanda about her country’s politics. That phone has the address of Morgan Stark’s school saved to it.

    He’s not letting anyone take that phone.

    “Give that back!” He yells, and she cackles.

    “You attack me,” she says, dangling the phone in front of his face, “Kid gets hurt.”

     Harley’s attention is drawn by an ear piercing screech as the man’s knife digs ever so slightly into the boy’s neck. His teeth grit; there has to be  _ some  _ way to get his phone and get the kid to safety, there  _ has _ to be. Finally, after a tense few seconds a lightbulb goes off in his head, and he stretches out his fingers hopefully behind his back and prays. 

    And then the man shouts something incoherent and collapses to the ground, letting the kid loose. The kid goes running out of the alley. What. The Hell.

    “Be safe!” Harley manages to call through his shock.

    He and the woman both look to the man, their shared surprise forcing a truce between them for mere seconds. Harley squints his eyes to see through the dim light of dusk and sees - an arrow.

    A type of arrow he vividly remembers gifting one Clint Barton four years and one day ago.

    “Oh my  _ fuck,”  _ he breathes just as Clint drops to the ground in front of him.

    After a short pause, Clint simply says, “Keener.” ( _ “Your first name,” Clint had, years ago, told him matter-of-factly as they tossed stones in the lake by his home, “is reserved for serious moments. That makes it more poignant.” Harley had just taught him the meaning of the word poignant. _ )

    Harley stares. His thoughts switch straight to telling Natasha. 

    “Uncle-,” Harley cuts off with a choked gasp as an arm wraps around his neck and a blade settles at his throat. 

    “Leave and don’t say  _ anything  _ or the kid gets it.” Do - do these guys have a fetish for threatening kids or something? Fucking freaks. Not to mention how…  _ dumb  _ that plan is. 

    “Like Hell,” Harley and Clint say nearly in unison. As metal wraps around his palm, Harley gives a smug smirk and sends a repulsor blast backwards. (Aimed to just graze his attacker’s skin, of course.)

    The woman shrieks and scrambles back. The second Harley leaves her grip an arrow hits her in the dead center of her forehead. A dull arrow, because apparently Clint, who he  _ knows  _ has been off assassinating people for three years, is trying to be nice around Harley. 

     Regardless, the woman falls to the ground. 

    “Did you see my happy birthday tweet?” Harley asks as he retrieves his phone and his undamaged sandwich, thank God. “Actually, do you see  _ any  _ of those tweets?”

    “Of course I do,” Clint says, raspy and hoarse. He shifts uncertainly, like he’s ready to dart at any second, and Harley takes a moment to take in his uncle’s appearance: full black, a quiver slung over his torso. A mask.

    “All the reports said you were using katanas,” Harley says, pointing at the bow in Clint’s hand. 

    “Yeah, they - broke. Gotta get… new ones.” His speech is stilted, like he’s not used to talking to people anymore, and Harley really doubts he is. And his voice sounds - thick. Like he’s crying. It’s hard to tell, what with the obviously-blood-stained mask he’s wearing. 

    There’s a pregnant pause, where for once in his life Harley doesn’t know what to say. Then, Harley mutters, “Why’d you leave?”

     Clint doesn’t respond. Instead, he starts walking towards the entrance of the alley. “I have to go.”

    “Wait, Clint!”

    And Harley didn’t actually plan anything to say after that, to keep the man around, so when Clint turns around he says the first thing that pops into his head: “Do you wanna get some ice cream or something?”

    Clint huffs a laugh and Harley’s heart stops as he says, “Sure, kid.”

  
  
  


    Later, Clint leaves him at an ice cream parlor. (After making him pay for the ice cream, of course.)

    Later, Clint leaves him with the words: “See you around,  _ Harley. _ ”

    Later, Harley calls Natasha, and he  _ swears _ neither of them cry.

**Author's Note:**

> PLEASE come scream at me on tumblr @luciimarii


End file.
